Artist Foundations’ Net Worth Has Nearly Tripled to $9 B., Led by Cy Twombly Foundation’s $1.5 B. in Art and Assets

New research from the Aspen Institute’s Artist-Endowed Foundation Initiative (AEFI) reveals that artist-endowed foundations in the U.S. now control roughly $9 billion in assets, nearly triple the $3.5 billion reported in 2011 and up 17% from $7.7 billion in 2018. The Cy Twombly Foundation leads with $1.5 billion in art and assets, followed by foundations for Alexander Calder, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, and Robert Rauschenberg, each holding over $500 million. The data, drawn from public tax forms, shows that just five of roughly 500 foundations account for more than half the total, with most established by postwar American artists born before 1931.

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Frieze Los Angeles 2026 opened amid concerns over the city's cooling art market, following a wave of gallery closures and a shift toward nomadic dealer models. Despite the economic downturn and the lingering shadow of previous regional fires, the fair week saw a resurgence of energy with 32,000 attendees and significant blue-chip sales, including a $3.75 million Ed Ruscha at Gagosian and a $2.8 million Njideka Akunyili Crosby at David Zwirner. The week was characterized by a mix of high-end commerce at the Santa Monica Airport and grassroots vitality at satellite events like Felix and the newly launched Post-Fair.

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Kenny Schachter's column reports on the fallout at Michael Werner Gallery following the departure of star artist Peter Doig. Co-owner Gordon VeneKlasen is accused of expensing luxury items—including private jets, Hamptons helicopter rides, and even a solo helicopter trip for his Labrador Retriever—while the gallery faced financial strain. The partnership is dissolving, with VeneKlasen moving to Los Angeles to open his own gallery and listing his West Village home for $20 million. Meanwhile, Schachter also notes Pace Gallery's financial troubles, with founder Arne Glimcher stepping in to stabilize operations.

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The article reports on the Museum of Modern Art's retrospective "Jack Whitten: The Messenger," which runs through August 2 and features 175 works including paintings, sculpture, and archival materials. Curator Michelle Kuo describes Whitten's "endless innovation," noting that art handlers were astonished by his pioneering techniques. Whitten, who died in 2018 at age 78, moved from Alabama to New York in 1960, attended Cooper Union, and was influenced by jazz and figures like Willem de Kooning and Romare Bearden. The article also examines Whitten's art market, highlighting his auction record of $2.66 million for "Special Checking" (1974) at Sotheby's in 2019, and noting that while prices are rising, his work remains undervalued compared to peers like Gerhard Richter.

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Kenny Schachter's article for Artnet News draws a parallel between President Jimmy Carter's 1977 energy-crisis plea to lower thermostats and the current art-market response to Trump-era tariff turmoil. He reports that the spring 2025 auction cycle generated $1.25 billion, continuing a decade-long decline from the 2014 peak, with bidders spending less and big-ticket sellers stuck. Schachter also promotes his own no-reserve auction, "Hoarder #6," scheduled for July 8–17 at Phillips, and critiques Trump's economic policies and crypto ventures, name-dropping Justin Sun as a major holder of $Trump tokens.

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At the VIP opening of Frieze New York on Wednesday, dealers reported strong sales despite economic uncertainty from Trump administration policies and trade war threats. The fair, recently sold to Hollywood powerhouse Ari Emanuel, returned to the Shed in Hudson Yards with 67 exhibitors. Gagosian Gallery generated the most buzz, selling one of three Jeff Koons Incredible Hulk sculptures—polychromed steel works priced around $3 million each—and placing a hold on another. Other notable sales included works by Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Tomie Ohtake, Sheila Hicks, Liza Lou, and Gertrude Abercrombie, with galleries like James Cohan, Galeria Nara Roesler, Thaddaeus Ropac, Karma, and Hauser & Wirth reporting brisk business.

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The article reports on the upcoming May 2025 marquee auctions in New York at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips, which carry a combined low estimate of about $1.2 billion—similar to last year. However, the market faces headwinds from U.S. trade wars, stock market volatility, high interest rates, and ongoing global conflicts. Major consignors include estates (Len Riggio, Anne Bass), living patrons (Tiqui Atencio, Norman Braman), dealers (Daniella Luxembourg, Barbara Gladstone, Enrico Navara), and institutions (SFMOMA, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Phillips Collection). Notable lots include Sheldon Solow’s $70 million Alberto Giacometti at Sotheby’s and Riggio’s $50 million Mondrian at Christie’s. Collector Peter M. Brant is revealed as the seller of Basquiat’s Baby Boom (1982) and a John Currin painting at Christie’s.

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Thaddaeus Ropac, a major European blue-chip gallery, opened its seventh location in Milan in January 2025, occupying a prime palazzo previously home to Massimo de Carlo and Peres Projects. The inaugural exhibition pairs Georg Baselitz and Lucio Fontana in a show titled "L’aurore viene." The move has reignited debate about whether Milan is finally poised to become a contemporary art capital, despite past false starts and the city's stronger identity as a fashion and design hub.

Contemporary Art Market Declines For Fourth Straight Year, as Old Masters and Impressionist Works Rebound: Art Basel UBS Report

Contemporary Art Market Declines For Fourth Straight Year, as Old Masters and Impressionist Works Rebound: Art Basel UBS Report

The contemporary art market has declined for the fourth consecutive year, with auction sales for postwar and contemporary works falling to $4.5 billion in 2025 from a peak of $8.5 billion in 2021. Simultaneously, the market has seen a significant rebound in more established categories, with auction sales of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works rising 47% and Old Masters climbing 30% last year.

Ceramics Are Everywhere, in Museums, Galleries, and Fairs—Has the Market Caught Up?

Ceramics are experiencing a surge in visibility across museums, galleries, and art fairs in major US cities. The article catalogs numerous recent and upcoming exhibitions, including Kathy Butterly's sold-out show at James Cohan with pieces at $45,000 each, Nicole Cherubini's nearly sold-out show at Friedman Benda with prices up to $65,000, and Ruby Neri's work at Salon 94 peaking at $75,000. Other highlights include Ron Nagle at Matthew Marks, Theaster Gates' Gagosian show celebrating David Drake, NADA Ceramics in Tribeca, and ceramic presentations at Frieze Los Angeles, Post-Fair, Expo Chicago, and David Zwirner. Institutional shows include Toshiko Takaezu at Princeton University Art Museum and a ceramic collection at RISD Museum.

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Frieze London 2025 opened with strong VIP preview sales, as major galleries reported brisk business by early afternoon. Thaddaeus Ropac sold a Robert Rauschenberg work for $850,000 and a Tony Cragg sculpture for $420,000, while Hauser & Wirth moved multiple pieces including a George Rouy for £275,000 and an Ellen Gallagher for $950,000. Gagosian sold a new Lauren Halsey sculpture before noon, and White Cube reported six sales. The fair's layout, which places mega-galleries at the back to encourage foot traffic to smaller booths, returned by popular demand.

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The fourth edition of Frieze Seoul opened with strong collector turnout and solid first-day sales, despite a turbulent global art market. High-profile attendees included MoMA PS1 director Connie Butler, Hawai‘i Triennial 2025 cocurator Wassan Al-Khudhairi, and Top 200 Collectors Lonti Ebers, Yassmin Ghandehari, and Qiao Zhibing, alongside K-pop stars Lisa (BLACKPINK), RM (BTS), and The8 and Vernon (Seventeen). Major sales included Hauser & Wirth’s $4.5 million sale of Mark Bradford’s triptych "Okay, then I apologize" (2025) and a George Condo painting for $1.2 million, while White Cube, Thaddaeus Ropac, Pace Gallery, and others reported significant transactions. International blue-chip galleries with Seoul spaces are doubling down, presenting top-tier shows of star artists like James Turrell, Antony Gormley, and Lee Bul, with Korea’s private museums also mounting blockbuster exhibitions.

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Sotheby's three-part evening sale in New York on Thursday generated $186.1 million across 68 lots, landing near the high end of its $141 million to $204.9 million estimate. The sale included a focused 12-lot offering from the collection of late gallerist Barbara Gladstone, which sold all works without guarantees and totaled $18.5 million, and a 15-work guaranteed sale from dealer Daniella Luxembourg featuring postwar Italian artists, where Lucio Fontana's 'Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio' (1963) achieved $14.5 million and Michelangelo Pistoletto's 'Maria Nuda' (1969) sold for $2.7 million after a five-minute bidding war.

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Abu Dhabi Art (ADA) opens its largest edition to VIPs on November 18 at Manarat Al Saadiyat, featuring 142 exhibitors—up from just over 100 last year. This is the final edition under the ADA name before it relaunches as Frieze Abu Dhabi in 2025, marking a major transition for the Gulf's art market. Key international dealers like Pace are returning after a long absence, and the fair includes works by Robert Indiana, Arlene Shechet, and a teamLab installation. The event comes as Art Basel also plans its 2026 debut in Qatar, signaling a broader regional shift.

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This article explores the growing trend of artist-made furniture, which blurs the line between functional design and fine art. It highlights how artists like Salvador Dalí, Isamu Noguchi, Donald Judd, Tracey Emin, and the duo Les Lalanne have created pieces that invite physical interaction—such as sitting or touching—while retaining high art status. Gallerist Massimo de Carlo notes that collectors are drawn to this merging of art and life, and that such works offer both conceptual depth and investment value. The article also notes market disparities, with editions of furniture costing far less than unique works, though some pieces, like a François-Xavier Lalanne rhinoceros desk, have sold for nearly $20 million at auction.

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New York appraiser and art dealer Glenn Spellman discovered an abstract painting signed "E.H." on the Goodwill thrift store website last fall. Suspecting it might be by Eva Hesse, he enlisted his sister Kara Spellman, director of estates and acquisitions at Hollis Taggart gallery, who confirmed the painting's authenticity by consulting the artist's catalogue raisonné at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's library. The painting, titled *Landscape Forms* (1959), was acquired for $40,000 and will be auctioned at Christie's New York on May 15 with an estimate of $60,000–$80,000. A second Hesse work, *No title* (1964–65), will be offered at Phillips New York the previous day.

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Hauser & Wirth has sold its Upper East Side townhouse at 32 East 69th Street for $10.5 million to a developer, ending a decades-long presence in the neighborhood. The property, purchased in the 1990s as a family residence, was renovated by architect Annabelle Selldorf and later used as gallery space from 2009, hosting exhibitions by artists like Pope.L, Anna Maria Maiolino, Luchita Hurtado, and Arshile Gorky. Gallery co-founder Iwan Wirth cited a shift in the family's center of gravity to Chelsea and the business's expansion downtown with new locations on West 18th Street and Wooster Street in SoHo.

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Morgan Stanley and Artnet have released an Intelligence Report analyzing the explosive growth of the ultra-contemporary art market—defined as work by artists born after 1974. Auction sales in this category surged 305% from 2019 to 2021, reaching $742.2 million last year, driven by strong demand in the U.S. and China. The report breaks down sales by region, price band, and leading artists, highlighting how galleries, fairs, museums, and collectors are capitalizing on this trend.

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Artnet News, in collaboration with Morgan Stanley, analyzed auction data from the Artnet Price Database to assess the state of the European Old Master market since 2018. The investigation explores how efforts to contemporize Old Masters—through juxtapositions at art fairs like TEFAF and Masterpiece London, and gallery shows such as David Zwirner's 'Endless Enigma'—have correlated with market trends for Contemporary and Ultra-Contemporary artists whose work is visibly influenced by classical European art. The report also examines the impact of living artists inspired by Old Masters, suggesting that restricting analysis to historical works alone may underestimate their ongoing influence on the art market.

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Artnet News and Morgan Stanley have released a report analyzing the global art auction market across four major cities—London, Paris, Hong Kong, and New York—over the period from 2013 to 2023. Total auction sales for the first half of 2024 fell to $5.05 billion, down from $7.17 billion in the same period of 2023. The report highlights a dramatic 49 percent decline in London's auction sales following the 2016 Brexit vote, while New York has maintained its dominant position, driven by blockbuster collections like those of Peggy and David Rockefeller and Paul G. Allen. Hong Kong saw growth until the Chinese property crisis in 2022, and Paris has gained ground post-Brexit, with sales up 30 percent over 2013.

Is Hong Kong Back? The GRAND PRIX de Basel 2026

Hong Kong’s art scene experienced a massive surge of activity in March 2026, anchored by Art Basel Hong Kong and Art Central. The city hosted 240 galleries at the main fair, drawing over 91,000 visitors, alongside numerous boutique fairs, auction previews, and major institutional exhibitions. Highlights included a reassembled 1964 Yayoi Kusama installation at Art Intelligence Global, a lecture by Zhang Xiaogang at Asia Art Archive, and a poignant solo show by artist duo Chow and Lin at SC Gallery.

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The estate of Robert Colescott, the influential American painter who died in 2009, has signed with Gladstone Gallery for representation. Gladstone will debut Colescott's work at Art Basel Miami Beach next month and mount its first solo exhibition for the artist in 2025. Colescott is best known for satirical, large-scale paintings like "George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook" (1975), which critiques the exclusion and caricaturing of Black figures in American history and art. The estate sought new representation after its longtime gallery, Blum, closed this summer. Gladstone senior partner Max Falkenstein said the gallery had long admired Colescott and that the partnership felt like a natural fit given the gallery's focus on identity and politics.

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Gladstone Gallery has secured U.S. representation of Peter Saul, the 91-year-old painter known for his garish satirical canvases, and appointed Anna Christina Furney, formerly a partner at Venus Over Manhattan, as director. Saul will continue to be represented in the U.S. and UK by Michael Werner Gallery. Furney had represented Saul for 14 years at Venus Over Manhattan, which recently closed after founder Adam Lindemann announced he would shutter the gallery and return to being a collector.

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Drax Fine Art, LLC has filed a lawsuit against David Kordansky Gallery, the Sam Gilliam Foundation, and the late artist's widow Annie Gawlak, alleging they conspired to disavow and defame an authentic Sam Gilliam drape painting from 1972. Drax claims the work was acquired from Carl Solway Gallery in Cincinnati, installed in an architectural firm's lobby, and later purchased by Drax. The plaintiff seeks $6 million in damages, accusing the defendants of blocking an auction sale by claiming restoration efforts constituted irreparable damage. The defendants call the claims "absolutely frivolous," asserting the unsigned, undated piece does not conform to Gilliam's practice and may be a studio remnant.

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Two major New York art fairs—NADA New York and Independent—opened this week alongside Frieze and TEFAF, marking a crowded spring fair season. Despite a recent market downturn, both fairs reported strong attendance and early sales. NADA's executive director Heather Hubbs noted high-quality visitors and positive feedback on the new venue, while Independent founder Elizabeth Dee cited a 20% increase in opening-day attendance and robust buying from collectors and institutions. Sales ranged from lower-priced works under $50,000 to six-figure transactions, with galleries like Vielmetter Los Angeles, Andréhn-Schiptjenko, and Fleisher/Ollman Gallery reporting significant sales.

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The 28th edition of Paris Photo, which closed November 16, saw a surge in representation of women photographers, rising to 39 percent of artists on view from 20 percent in 2018. This shift is driven by the fair's Elles program, launched with France's ministry of culture, and a broader market appetite for rediscovered women artists. Notable sales included works by Ming Smith, whose vintage prints sold for up to €60,000 at M77 gallery, and offerings from Les Filles du Calvaire featuring Helena Almeida and Katalin Ladik. Richard Saltoun gallery returned after six years with a booth focused on women photographers.

The Box Shutters in Los Angeles After Nearly Two Decades

The Box, a pioneering Los Angeles gallery known for its nonprofit-style support of experimental and performance art, has announced its closure after nearly two decades. Founded in 2007 by Mara McCarthy, the gallery’s final exhibition featured late California painter Wally Hedrick, and a closing event will include a fashion show by Johanna Went. Mara McCarthy cited the shifting market for her father Paul McCarthy’s work and the loss of family homes in the Eaton Fire as factors behind the decision.

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Artnet Auctions has launched its Premier Prints and Multiples sale, live for bidding through April 10, 2025. The sale features important works by artists including Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Barbara Kruger, with estimates ranging from $7,000 to $70,000. The article highlights the often-overlooked relationships between artists and the printers and publishers who bring their visions to life, using examples such as Peter Blake's collaboration with publisher Paul Stolper on the portfolio "An Alphabet" (2007) and Barbara Kruger's work "Savoir c'est pouvoir" (1989) printed by Derriere L'Etoile Studios.

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Frieze Seoul returns for its fourth edition at Coex from September 3 to 6 with 120 galleries, maintaining last year's scale. Asian galleries now represent 64 percent of exhibitors, up from 48 percent, signaling a stronger regional identity. Notable non-returning galleries include Blum, Karma, and Neugerriemschneider. Meanwhile, Kiaf Seoul will run concurrently with 176 exhibitors, and Art021 Group suspended its 2025 Hong Kong show after a single edition. Gallery Weekend Beijing concluded its ninth edition with a new invitation-only model, and several Asian-rooted artists are featured in London Gallery Weekend. New institutions opened, including the Photography Seoul Museum of Art and the Naoshima New Museum of Art, while the inaugural Bukhara Biennial program was announced.

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The Baloise Art Prize, worth $36,800, has been awarded to artists Rhea Dillon and Joyce Joumaa at Art Basel. Dillon's "Leaning Figures" sculptures, made from soap and molasses, were presented by London's Soft Opening gallery. Joumaa's installation "Periodic Sights," shown by Montreal's Eli Kerr Gallery, features photographs of Tripoli and Beirut commenting on energy crises in Lebanon. The prize is given annually to two artists in the fair's Statements sector.